And I did. For my two remaining days,
I stopped striving and an gling for control.
I let the Chopra Center recommend my
treatments and enjoyed a balancing shi-
rodhara treatment, a soothing abhyanga
massage, and a completely blissful sound-
therapy/massage hybrid treatment called
Gandharva, with glorious crystal singing
bowls—something I would have never
selected for myself (too frivolous).
I had the great fortune to meet with
David Simon, the late neurologist who
was the medical director, CEO, and co-
founder of the Chopra Center. He recom-
mended that I simply create some space
in my schedule every day—five-minute
“buffer zones” before and after each of my
many meetings and endless tasks. That
would, he said, go a long way toward cre-
ating balance and helping me tap into my
own compassionate heart.
For the next two days, I ate well; I drank
tea. Between spa appointments, I did—
amazingly—nothing. I sat by the pool. I
sipped cucumber water. My head be gan
to clear. I felt a little better. But though
I was relinquishing control, I was still
soaking up information. The best mind-
body spas send you home with the tools
you need to balance your life outside
their rarified walls. I was learning what I
needed to know about how to eat, sleep,
exercise, and keep a cool head even as
I kept a warm heart.SUSTAINABLE TRANSFORMATION
And that, says Robert MacDonald, an
acupuncturist and massage therapist who
is director of healing for the Exhale Mind
Body Spa (with facilities in New York City
and other locations around the world), is
what makes a visit to the spa transforma-
tional. “When you embrace therapies like
yoga or acupuncture or even bodywork,
you’re really reaching for tools that can
elevate you to a higher level of function-
ality,” he says. “If you go off to a spa and
you just have treatments and don’t learn
anything, it’s like going on the Atkins diet.
It’s great when you’re using it, but when
you get back to your regular life, it all falls
apart. But a good spa is about sustainable
transformation.”
For Seane Corn, an occasional spa visit
is part of her ongoing pitta-managementfa miliar. My ears pricked up as he outlined
the cure: “Pittas need to be soothed; they
are inflamed. You can only get so inflamed
before you incinerate yourself. You’re like
an engine running, running, running. You
have to shut off so you can cool down.”
I know the truth when I hear it. I was a
pitta out of control. I needed to do what
people come to spas to do: let go, unwind,
and turn myself over to someone else to
manage for a little while. Create space.
Surrender. See what would happen.ends—they’ve been running at such a high
level of execution that they are literally
fried,” Green span said. “They are working
all the time, barking at people, causing and
getting headaches. They’re not taking any
time off for anything. They end up getting
so overheated everyone around them gets
burned. I call it scorching the village.”
CHILLING OUT
Huh. I myself am a pitta type, and some-
thing about this scenario sounded ... a b i t
“We see a lot of stressed-
out pittas at Exhale in New
York,” says Robert Mac-
Donald, the spa’s director
of healing. “They are the
people who are ultrasuc-
cessful on Wall Street. They
literally thrive on stress.
But the body can’t tell the
difference between stress
you love and stress you
don’t. So you have to work
to offset the impact.”
Pittas have a lot of stamina,
says Greenspan, which is
both good and bad. They
can push themselves right
up to the point of collapse.
“They need to learn cooling
techniques so they don’t
scorch the earth around
them—so they can be com-
passionate and loving in-
stead of so pointed and
direct,” he says. The great-
est cooling tool in the arse-
nal? Meditation.
“Meditation soothes
and calms; it allows you
to have stillness and
silence instead of reactive
re sponses,” Greenspan
says. “It can allow a pitta to
live life with great grace
and ease. It can create a
huge shift.”
At the spa, good choices
include treatments aimed
CALM FOR THE MIND
what pittas
need
at healing (pittas benefit
enormously from creating
the intention to heal) and
those that address heat-
related complaints. Cool-
water therapies are good
choices, as are Reiki and
other gentle forms of en-
ergy work, massages, and
facials. Choose avocado or
coconut oils for a massage,
and work with essential
oils of sandalwood, jasmine,
or rose.
TREATMENT TO TRY
SHIRODHARA
Shirodhara is the classical
soothing Ayurvedic treat-
ment in which a continuous
stream of therapeutic oil is
applied to the head. It’s the
perfect antidote to the pittatendency to think too
much—it cools down an
overheated head quickly.
As a bonus, shi ro dhara
also brings down excess
vata, thereby reducing any
winds that might be fan-
ning your flames. (“If you
have a fire going and you
add a lot of wind, suddenly
it’s a bonfire,” Greenspan
explains. “You often need
to address vata and pitta.”)
If you’re angry, irritable, or
agitated, indulge in a shi-
rodhara treatment and say
goodbye to those little puffs
of smoke that have been
blowing out of your ears.WARM OIL
SOOTHES AN
OVERHEATED
BRAIN.102 YOGAJOURNAL.COM YOGA TODAY